Cold Turkey
 

So, it looks like I'll soon be starting in a new job in a Silicon Valley startup (not a dot com!)...

but my travel will go from about 120K miles a year to maybe 10K or less.

What a waste of Platinum Medallion & Prem. Executive status, huh?

Long hours and little vacation means that it isn't likely I can supplement this minimal business travel with personal travcl.

What is the best strategy for dealing with travel withdrawal? Methadone? Do I need to get rid of my dual time-zone watch? What should I do with my collection of Swiss, Japanese, British, German, French and Finnish currency? Do I try to make, in my own kitchen at home, Omaha steaks, rubber shrimp, tri-color pasta and warmed mixed nuts? Do I need to find a bottle of Green Goddess dressing?

Congrads on the new job.

Time to start stockpiling! Other tips to help you through your tough times:

1. Learn to add 50% extra time to whatever you cook in your microwave.

2. Start giving the guy at the gas station an extra 5% every few months (regardless of what oil prices do, and subject to initiation by other drivers).

3. Paging desk in the garage.

4. Learn the bus routes then flip a coin each morning to determine if your car has "gone mechanical."

5. Invest in a scrolling red LED display (see #3) that permanantly displays "Delayed."

6. Start plucking those pesky www.saveskymiles.com cards from the bathroom mirror every time a DL flyer comes over. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

7. Put courtesy phones in every room (don't worry, none of them should work in your house, either).

8. Play the recording from the movie "Airplane" around your driveway and front door area. "There is no unloading in the white zone..."

Sorry, couldn't resist. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Elektrik

- Contact United Asset Management and discuss the possibility of purchasing some old United First seats for your new home theater.

- Purchase lots of tableware, glassware, and cutlery with airline logos from eBay.

- Serve booze at your home only from "minis."

- Make certain your toilet bowl water is dyed a dark blue.

- Subscribe to home delivery of Hemispheres Magazine.

- Install a gate reader at your front door.

- Serve your dinner guests in order of their airline status.

and finally...

- Hang out at SFO on your days off.

Good Luck!

And the toilet has to make that giant sucking sound that threatens to actually pull you in.

But you only have to serve them half a can of their favorite beverage.

- Offer your guests at dinner salt and pepper in little paper tubes.

- Keep your blinds closed at home and in the office in the middle of the day for "better viewing by those around you."

- When taking trash out, make sure it fits through the dog door, it'll make you feel like you're using a template.

Don't fret, the same thing happened to me. You just make a bunch more weekend trips.

Greg

Rent a Port-a-Potty, the narrowest one possible, paint the door a weird beige-gray color, and helpfully label it "Toilet" with a light that goes on and off.

...Live vicariously through the rest of us!

Sorry to hear your travels are lessening, I guess. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/confused.gif

Sorry we never got to hook-up in Chicago back in the fall. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

Vicariously read as much of FT as possible.

Thanks for all the replies, I was LOL!

I have decided the following.
1). I will run (loud) dehydrators all day at my house.
2). I will install seat belts on my sofa and use them whenever seated, in case of unforcast earthquakes.
3). I will install emergency lighting in my carpet. White lights lead to red lights.
4). I will institute a house rule that no one is ever allowed to bring me a gift of a bottle of wine.
5.) I will continue to post on Flyertalk, even though my contributions will become dated and ill-informed, until such time that I become totally patheic and am hounded off the board by a series of 5-page flame threads on "The Buzz".

Glad I have something to look forward to. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Stop! I'm laughing so hard my eyes hurt!

You can find Green Goddess dressing.

I think AA is selling some of the seats it took out of its aircraft as part of its More Room Throughout Coach program. Get a row of three from a 737, then invite two very large friends to come over and get in the middle seat between them... For best effect, put the seats facing a blank wall, real close.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned mileage runs. Take one every 3 months and you could visit far off exotic places and retain the PE status on United. Four weekends is not much no matter how long you work and how little the vacation.

And keep on reading FT for the tips on accumulating miles while at home.

I'm not really the mileage run kind of fellow. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

The reason status was nice was that I travelled so much, it was a survival tactic. Having status and not flying (except to get more status) doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Hopefully, I will make so much money at my new venture that some day I can afford to just pay for First Class anytime I want to travel (and isn't that the American dream?) http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

I make good bucks (...at a Silicon valley non-dot-com company...) but I'm not sure that I would ever be willing to pay what airlines are charging for first class tickets today. Even if I've got the money to burn, I'd rather burn the money in other ways that I would enjoy more. Donate it to a charity I care about, for example. When 3 coach cabin tickets (guaranteeing you an empty seat on each side of you) can cost a mere quarter of a first class ticket, it just doesn't make any sense to me to spend that kind of money.

I wonder if Warren Buffet ever buys first class tickets. I'd imagine not....

(My aversion only applies to paying cash. Upgrades and first class awards are something else.... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif )

When I was growing up in California (Silicon Valley for that matter), I loved travelling (I got the bug on a short visit to LON at age 8), but my family only had the money to send me and my sister abroad twice between age 8 and 18 to visit our relatives in Israel and the UK.
What we did? We (i.e. my sister and I) saved all the plastic cups, inflight magazines etc., from the plane, and after we´d get back, we´d invite friends over and have some pretend flights (we even got to the point where we made and "scanned" in frequent flier cards!). Now that I fly transatlantic 2-3 times per year, it seems like the make-believe might have actually been more fun than flying (when we made-believe, we could always fly in first for nothing - except once when my sister got rowdy and I sent her back to coach http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif ).
Of course, if as an adult you invite your friends over to such an activity, they might try to call the straightjacket people. One suggestion: organize a "themed" murder mystery party - and set it on a plane. For some reason that sort of make-believe looks perfectly mature and sophisticated http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif.
Yonatan

Funny thread http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif
I am in the midst of going 722 hours without a flight, and today I went to the supermarket and got a can of cheap mixed nuts (no peanuts), and I filled a little individual ramekin and warmed them for a minute in the nuke. Something was still missing. So I put the rest of the nuts in the fridge and later doled out 23 of them in an ice-cold dish. And when they were done, I muttered to myself, "no, I'm sorry, the caterer didn't load any extras today."

Postscript: Day #8 of my new (no travel) job.

"Can you go to Germany next week"?

Destiny.

Violist -- !! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Opus17: those positive cat vibes of mine must be working.

And of course you always can get an e-fare and visit me in NYC! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I'm bringing this old thread back because it was pretty funny and there aren't too many funny threads over here in Travel-Land.

I did take one business trip to Germany, and a couple of vacation trips to Europe, so I will not be status-free next year. And I never did go through total cold-turkey withdrawal. But with the economic times what they are, others must be --- any new tips for the suddenly grounded?

Want to get fresh air, exercise, quality family time and a charitable donation all at the same time? Have I got a deal for you! http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/wink.gif Load up the wife and kids (the older the better because they're more help), and go to Sam's Club. Buy 20 big boxes of Kellogg's Eggo Waffles with the 500 mile certs. Get an assembly line going - adults cut the certs,
older children load the boxes in the car, smaller children put the certs in a box. Take the waffles to a local food pantry or shelter and get a tax deductible receipt for the actual waffle amount. Print out peel off labels with the required information, trim to fit, number certs (1 of ...), copy and mail. For about $130. and a little time, you get 10,000 AA miles. Plan B - Skip the donation. If you have a big freezer and kids, remember that waffles make great ice cream sandwiches. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif

Thought I'd make it even easier to find:

http://www.netgrocer.com/detail.cfm?...8&smallFrm=yes

They seem to be currently out of stock, though.

I have been offered this on hundreds of UA flights. I've never tried it -- just seemend a bit scary (and when the Asian sesame isn't bad). What says y'all about Green Goddess? What does it taste like?

Dude--

Buy or rent a new sport utility, and spend the weekend sitting in the third seat--you know, the little one in the rear. The Land Rover Discovery has an especially small seat, one that makes most any airline look inviting.

Then, get someone to sit in the seat next to you, and send out for chinese!

You could then get the aforementioned port-a-potty and put it on a trailer behind the sport utility, and practice walking to it & using it while in motion (best at 300+ mph).

You might see if someone could drive you out to the airport and let you go through security and eat cold pizza in the terminal. Maybe even ride a few laps in the parking lot shuttles.

I've considered trying to match the carpet from PHX to put in my house.

But seriously--buy some books, turn off the tv, spend time with your family/significant others then you never got to spend before, bake some cookies and take to your neighbors.

JP